Audiobus: Use your music apps together.
What is Audiobus? — Audiobus is an award-winning music app for iPhone and iPad which lets you use your other music apps together. Chain effects on your favourite synth, run the output of apps or Audio Units into an app like GarageBand or Loopy, or select a different audio interface output for each app. Route MIDI between apps — drive a synth from a MIDI sequencer, or add an arpeggiator to your MIDI keyboard — or sync with your external MIDI gear. And control your entire setup from a MIDI controller.
Download on the App StoreAudiobus is the app that makes the rest of your setup better.
iPad Air 2 vibrations
I just got my iPad Air 2 a few days ago and so far I love it. I actually prefer the weight, thickness and body design of my old iPad 4. The thinness to me is not a benefit. Its a little disconcerting. BUT, whenever I play music or other sounds, its vibrates like a vibrator. Feels almost like electrical current being fed through the chassis. Weird. I'm using it to create music so I can play it through speakers or headphones, but I'm wondering if this will eventually cause issues! I'm used to using the speakers for some quick testing of presets and stuff.
Just as a mention and also would like to hear if anyone else is experiencing this...
Comments
Don't have an Air2 (yet ;-), but do you get the vibrations while playing through the built in speakers (this I could understand) or when you play through external speakers?
I've seen a lot of complains about it,so it's"normal".The price of the Thinness war...
It was the same with the air 1 too.
@Ganthofer
yeh, sorry, I mean to say through the internal speaker.
thanks for the replies!
I want the thickness back!
I also had an iPad 4 and while i loved that it's build like a tank i also hated this in the same moment ;-)
heavyweight pig
Personally I think the external speaker on any iDevice is next to useless for Music production. How could I spend $200 + on essential Audiobus apps, then not have $50 for a decent pair of earbuds, cans, or cheap Bluetooth speaker (with 3.5mm input)? In my mind it is part of the essentials list, if you are using Audiobus. ... Sorry, please don't take that personally... Just my experience with the speaker.
Aside from that, if you are happy with the speaker sound quality... Then, yeah, it would be interesting to find out if the constant rattle will start to make the iPad fall apart! I wouldn't worry, since Apple Care is pretty good. Maybe purchase that second year if you are in the US?
And don't forget that you have 2-3 x more latency output via internal speakers (iOS and OS X).
yeh, @Hmtx I'm not concerned about using headphones or speakers as I normally do when I'm actually recording, just when I'm messing around and tweaking presets "offline" so to speak. My main concern is wether the vibrations would damage the hardware over time. that's all... would never take what you said personally
I'm picking up (good?) vibrations as well...
I also noticed that the Air 2 sounds very different depending on what surface it's on, much more than the iPad 4. The Air 2 sound seems more detailed to me (perhaps because of the vibes?), but not necessarily better, can be a bit harsh.
Will probably start looking at an external set.
@Cinebient that's interesting, so external speakers have less latency? How about Bluetooth?
My iPad air 2 is reporting (with thumbjam) a healthy 4.4 ms latency @128 samples via headphones, not so healthy 16.6 with speakers. My iPhone 6 plus is 4.5 @ 128 samples via headphones and 16.3ms on speaker. No difference when on aeroplane or toggling b/g audio or power saving in thumbjam.
The subwoofer effect is taking a bit of getting used to!
Speaking about damage over time, I have an iPod touch 5g which is the same exact thickness (or thinness...) as the iPad Air 2 (6.1 mm), and obviously it vibrates at high volumes, but no damage in more than one year of heavy usage.
If you really want it to be thicker, put a hard case on it! Then you'll get thickness and protection. It might even help to dampen the vibrations.
@gkillmaster said:
I have a CaseCrown case on my iPad air that I love that makes it a little thicker and more grippable. Everything plugs in fine, but for audio out, some plugs are two thick, so i have a little extender.
Here is the iPad Air 1 version:
https://www.casecrown.com/tablets/ipadair/omni
They are working on version 2. I also love the different ways I can fold the cover.
Looking for a nice case as well. Apple's are way too expensive and I don't like their colors. But there's not a lot of choice yet, it'll probably be a few weeks still...
@Cinebient said:
This is news to me. I haven't noticed any latency myself using the internal speaker on ipad 4.
The vibrations haven't been really bothering me. Do you guys notice blank screens on many websites when scrolling and stopping? The screen goes blank, either half of whole, and doesn't reappear until scrolling again. Annoying!!
The higher latency via internal speaker is only with A7 and above devices i think (and the newer macs).
What are you using to measure latency?
The case will fix the thickness issue. Just ordered a Poetic grippy silicon case! thanks for the suggestion!
The only issue I've seen on my Air2 is that the Photos app sometimes launches randomly on it's own. Still can't figure that one out...
My air 2 is always on a iPad stand (looks like a mini iMac when on it) when at home so no vibrations for me as for durability cos of the sound I wouldn't think that would be a problem due to the iPad being tested for them kinds of things. It would cost them more to replace throght apple care.
@Ringleader yes I've been experiencing too what you said, it's a head doer sometimes I have to reload the page
@Tarekith that is weird, I havent experienced it myself
Yeah it's happened a few times when working on music apps, all of a sudden I end up in my photos app when it wasn't even launched yet. I plan on doing a quick restore later today, hopefully that sorts it.
My iPad air (not the air 2) opens the photo app if I have a hard drive plugged into the usb hub that's connected to the iPad. It doesn't open immediately but after a couple of minutes. Took me a while to figure out what it was. Do you have anything plugged into the iPad when the photo app randomly opens?
Yes! That's what it must be, I have all my controllers, sound card, and external HDs all hooked into the same usb3 hub. I just plug that into the iPad whenever I want to monitor on the studio monitors.
Whew, at least now it makes sense, thank you very much!
@jiggle&;Tarekith, so how do you guys plan to remedy this
Same goes for the case helping the Air 2 vibration issue. If you don't want to jailbreak it to put on some global EQ app the case/cover will reduce some of it, not all, but most of the annoying rattling.
iOS music production using only the internal speakers for monitors is of course ill advised, I just hated the vibrations coming from simple YouTube watching or podcasts. A case, TPU or a third party Smart Cover knock off from Amazon like the one I have been using is fine. The company EPS makes good quality stuff and really most cases are going to be alright, common sense of course applies...pay $2 for one you get a two buck case. $10 to $20 gets a pretty decent one no prolly...
When I encountered this problem, the explanation to Google search that placing iDevice in a humid environment may cause this problem. The solution to iDevice won't to stop vibrating is to make sure the iPhone is dry, turn off email notifications, disable vibration, force a reboot, and reset all settings.